1014. Experiencing God’s Mercy and Grace Through Diligent Preparation

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones, Sr. His intent was to make a school where Christ would be the center of everything, so he established daily chapel services.

Today, that tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from The University Chapel platform. Today's speaker is Dr. Eric Newton, seminary professor at Bob Jones University. Well, good morning.

It's good to see you. I know that you've got a lot on your minds, but it is a privilege to gather together and meet in God's name. It's always a privilege to open his word, and it's a privilege to speak on this topic.

I won't lie, though. When you're asked to speak on diligent preparation, you wonder why someone else didn't get the assignment. I can assure you that there wasn't some diligence contest among Bible faculty that I won or something like that. At least it's April 2nd, and it's not yesterday. You know, you get an email that says, hey, we want you to speak on diligent preparation.

April fools. But I do believe I can testify that the Lord has given, I believe, a message for us today. Jonathan Edwards is a name with whom you're familiar. He's perhaps the most influential and important theologian in American history. He's known for being a theologian with a very big view of God. As one author puts it, he looked at God first and then viewed all other things in relation to him. That's something that can be said of somebody. He looked first at God and then viewed all other things in relation to him. He spoke of the beauty of God's glory.

But he also understood the necessity of personal diligence. He's perhaps equally famous for 70 resolutions that he wrote as an 18 and 19-year-old. Resolutions like these.

Here's the first one. Resolved. That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory and to my own good, profit, and pleasure in the whole of my duration without any consideration of the time, whether now or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most of the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, however so many and however so great.

His 28th resolution reads like this. Resolved to study the scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently that I may find and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of them. I find it intriguing and highly significant that a man with whom was blessed, to whom was blessed perhaps one of the most amazing theological minds in all of history, a man who is known for exalting the glory of God and his grace, that that man resolved at a young age, the age of many of you, to work as hard as he could to bring God pleasure and to do it fundamentally by studying God's word.

It's difficult for us in our finite minds to hold the two ends of our topic this morning together. God's mercy and grace in our diligent preparation. We tend to have this compartment in our minds and we think, okay, it's a hundred percent capacity, so maybe God's grace and mercy will fill up that one hundred percent.

Or maybe we tend toward, I've got to have the kind of diligent preparation so that I fill up the one hundred percent. Or maybe we've got a combination of both. But it's hard for us to get our mental hands around the reality that it's all of grace and it's all of a resolution to diligently pursue God's glory. It's all of both.

It really is. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 10, but by the grace of God I am what I am. And his grace, which was bestowed on me, was not in vain.

But I labored more abundantly than they all. I don't think we would want to say, would we want to go on record having said that in scripture? But God inspired those words through Paul.

He finishes out, yet not I, but the grace of God which is with me. As one writer puts it, grace is not opposed to effort, it's opposed to earning. I want to appeal to you this morning that the church, the church that you're a part of, the church that you're going to be a part of, the church in which you're going to minister, some of you in just a few weeks, I was talking to a friend of mine right back there and in June he's going to be on staff in a local church here in the United States. I want to appeal to you that those churches need people like you, people who have a heart for ministry and an allegiance to a very great savior, to experience his mercy and grace through diligent preparation. That's what our churches need.

I don't think I have to try to convince you that our world is consumed with shallow, reactionary, temporal, humanistic, pragmatic thinking, not to mention self-centered, lawless, destructive living. I think we understand the need, at least to some extent. The church does not need people who are vaguely familiar with God's word, who give it a nod and a wink, who half-heartedly pass along microwaved speech that they sort of learned from others. And more importantly, that doesn't glorify God either. That's why I'm appealing to us this morning to be overwhelmed by God's mercy and grace through our diligent preparation.

Now Jonathan Edwards can motivate us. He certainly motivates me, but it's actually the word of God that savingly instructs us and rebukes us and corrects us and trains us and equips us. And so would you open your Bibles with me to Ezra chapter 7? And I'm going to read the first 10 verses.

Ezra 7, starting in verse 1. Now after these things and the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra the son of Sariah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Shalom, the son of Zadok, the son of Ahitub, the son of Amoriah, the son of Azariah, the son of Moriahoth, the son of Zerahiah, the son of Uzi, the son of Buki, the son of Abishua, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eliezer, the son of Aaron, the chief priest. You might be wondering, why didn't you just skip all those names? If I were in family worship with my children, they would be laughing by now. Alright? Believe me, when you say Uzi and Buki, they can't keep it under control. Alright, actually those names are important.

I'll come back to that. Verse 6. This Ezra, that particular Ezra, went up from Babylon and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses which the Lord God of Israel had given and the king granted him all his requests according to the hand of the Lord his God upon him. And there went up some of the children of Israel and the priests and the Levites and the singers and porters and the Nethenemes unto Jerusalem in the seventh year of Artaxerxes the king. And he, Ezra, came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, so it took him four months to get there, 900 miles, which was in the seventh year of the king, for upon the first day of the first month began he to go up from Babylon and on the first day of the fifth month came he to Jerusalem according to the good hand of his God upon him. Notice the connector, for, according to the good hand of his God upon him, for Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments. One of those three things by way of background here.

Number one. We need to understand what we're reading about is Ezra's believing response. He believed the Lord. He took the Lord at his word. If you'll notice chapter one verse three, this is very interesting. It's the call of the Lord through a pagan ruler.

Cyrus says, who is there among you of all his people? His God be with him and let him go up to Jerusalem. And Ezra and these other people that are mentioned in chapter seven, they obeyed the command of the Lord and they went up. They went up to return to help lead the restoration of a remnant in Jerusalem. I want us to understand the circumstances here. Do you realize how significant the Babylonian captivity was for the people of Israel?

How much of a signature it was of their failure? I mean there was no temple in Jerusalem. There was no united people of God to worship. But Ezra didn't order his life according to his circumstances. He ordered his life according to his God, his creator. He didn't settle for mere survival.

He didn't say I'm 900 miles away from home so it probably doesn't matter anyway. He didn't say okay my calling as a priest in this amazing line going back all the way to Aaron, that doesn't matter anymore. I mean there's no temple to be a priest at. Now he understood that he needed to prepare himself as Esther says for such a time as this. He believed God.

Number two, he had a blessed heritage. I know I'm talking to a variety of people today from a lot of different backgrounds but the very fact that you're sitting in this room is an indication that God has blessed you. Many of you through your physical family, all of us in other ways. People have poured into your life. They've poured money into your life. They're praying for you. People got up this morning and prayed for you at Bob Jones University. They prayed for your future. He had a blessed heritage. He didn't simply assume success. He considered God's grace in his young life and he did something with it.

Number three, there was a window of opportunity. I won't take time to really develop this but in chapter nine verse eight it says, he's praying confession. He's in Jerusalem now and he says and now for a little space grace hath been showed from the Lord our God to leave us a remnant to escape. I really like how King James puts that.

It's a little quaint but and now for a little space. Grace has been showed from the Lord our God. There was a window of opportunity we would call it. Ezra knew the Lord had favored his people for a time. There was an appointed window a little space for infinite grace and when the time came Ezra was ready.

And so we have in chapter seven verse ten an inspired pattern. Ezra prepared his heart. Ezra prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord. This word prepared in the Old Testament is used for appointing a representative of the twelve tribes for each of the twelve tribes. It's used for the Lord's establishing a king like David.

It's used for Haman's preparing the gallows for Mordecai. So Ezra made a firm appointment for his heart. He established its direction. He prepared his heart.

He did everything necessary to set it up to do these three things. It reminds me of Calvin's seal. John Calvin had a personal seal.

You can see a picture there. And it had this motto my heart I offer to you O Lord promptly and sincerely. We think of Calvin and maybe his heart is not what we think of but that's what he thought of. My heart O Lord I offer to you promptly and sincerely. I establish my heart.

Jonathan Edwards talked about the affections, the inclinations of the soul, the disposition of the will. What is the love that overpowers everything else in your life? What are you passionate about?

What have you established your heart to do? For Ezra it was to study the Bible and to do the Bible and to teach the Bible to the glory of God. The studying the law of the Lord. It's a search. It's an inquiry.

It's an exploration. This reminds me of a parallel verse in 2 Timothy 2 15. Study to show thyself approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing, cutting straight the word of truth. Study. This actually doesn't mean study like study the words.

Study has the idea of being especially conscientious of being earnestly committed, ready to expend energy and effort in fulfilling an obligation. Offering, putting in our disposal to God all that we have so that we might faithfully handle his word, tested and proven as a laborer. How we esteem the book is evidenced by how we handle the book.

How we esteem the Bible is evidenced by how we handle the Bible. And there are a lot of things going against this. Our quest for maximal efficiency. If I can get it done faster it must therefore be better, right?

We know that's not right, you know, up here, but that is often how I live, unfortunately. We put a premium on visible results. We have an innate penchant to compare ourselves among ourselves. He got it done in a half hour.

I should be able to do the same. He studied. He set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to do it. It's hard not to think of Daniel 1. When Daniel purposed in his heart to follow God's laws in a distant land and was given favor in the sight of God and man. Daniel and Ezra didn't find themselves in this foreign situation and decide that there must be a new way to do things.

A novel pathway to success. They established their hearts to make use of the revelation they had been given. Daniel studied the revelation. He knew when the 70 years was gonna be up.

He knew it was 70 years, Daniel 9 tells us. Ezra didn't forget the middle term. Study, teach, okay.

He didn't forget the middle term. Do the law of the Lord. That's not moralism. That's not legalism. Not by grace.

B.B. Warfield, Princeton theologian, said a minister must be learned on pain of being utterly incompetent in his work. But before and above being learned, a minister must be godly. Those who truly minister for God do so out of the overflow of our hearts. We apply what we see in the mirror of scripture. Think of James 1. You look into the perfect law of liberty and instead of forgetting what you saw, it changes you and you keep going back and looking at it.

And you walk away and you stumble, but you get back up and you go back and look at the perfect law of liberty. And it changes you because you're looking at Jesus and the Spirit transforms us to look like Jesus when we look at Jesus in his word. Those who experience God's mercy and grace through diligent preparation are people who have lifted up their heart and set its direction to do the law of the Lord and finally to teach the statutes and ordinances in Israel. We don't know all that came of Ezra's teaching ministry, okay. We don't have his systematic theology notes unfortunately. We do have some books of the Bible that he wrote.

But we do know some of the fruit. We read in Nehemiah 8 that years after Ezra returned to Jerusalem, the time came when God's people were ready for revival and Ezra was there to lead it, reading and explaining God's words. He was ready for such a time as this.

He couldn't have predicted how that was going to happen. He couldn't have known exactly how God was going to use him, but he was ready because he had established his heart in that direction. And several centuries later, Ezra's ministry goes on and on, not just in scripture in these books like Ezra and Chronicles that we believe he wrote, but also in this group called the Soferim, the scribes, the men who were kind of like the Jewish Bible society that for centuries maintained the Masoretic text.

Those were Ezra's guys. And there's a connection, as I tried to emphasize when I read verses 9 and 10, there's a connection between the good hand of his God being upon him and Ezra establishing his heart to do these things. Does this kind of mess with your theology a little bit? It says the good hand of his God was upon him for he had prepared his heart. I mean, we're talking about works righteousness here. He prepared his heart, so God blessed him. You honor me, I'll honor you.

Is that how it works? God's grace is all throughout this book. I mean, God told what he was going to do through Cyrus centuries before it happened. This is not works righteousness. God moved in Ezra's heart and he followed the Lord. He gave the Lord his heart. And because of that, it was very evident that God's mercy and grace was flowing through him and his good hand was upon him. We must push past reductive explanations of God's grace. God works mercifully and graciously in our lives not to make up the difference, not to excuse apathy and sloth, but to enable us through faith-filled diligence. How would we know that the good hand of the Lord is upon us? One way is because seemingly before it matters and anybody cares, we fix our heart to study and practice and do the Word, teach the Word. So mercy and grace for and through diligent preparation. This is a very interesting time of year to preach this message. Perhaps it's a very interesting time of year to listen to this message. I had some say in the day, but I don't think I was thinking about, you know, they're really going to need to stick it to them, you know, so they're diligent to the end.

That really wasn't my thinking, choosing this date. There's obviously an opportunity for immediate application of this during the final month of the semester, but I want to challenge you to think way, way, way beyond the next 30 days. I want to challenge some of you to think hard and pray faithfully about how God wants to use you and equip you. You would expect me to encourage you to go to seminary, right? Well, of course I'd love for you to go to seminary. Of course I would love for you to get some foundational training beyond what you already have.

But I'm thinking well beyond that. I'm thinking of a group of about 600 young people who are conscientious in fulfilling their spiritual ministries. If there's anything that we should care about most and work at hardest, it should be studying and practicing and teaching God's word. There's a mountain of mercies, therefore let's lay ourselves on the altar as living sacrifices.

It's the only worship that makes any sense. You say I'm not called to minister the word. I'm not going to be a preacher. I'm not going to be a Bible teacher.

You know what? Churches need some teaching and they need lots of other people who do lots of other things with the word throughout the week in their lives. There are hundreds of opportunities every year for people like all of us to enter into conversation and point people to the word because God has enabled us to diligently study it and to apply it imperfectly but sincerely and to be ready to teach it to others.

That's for all of us. That's what our churches need. Team up with other people. Find somebody who's called to be a minister and encourage them.

Go somewhere to the far flung reaches of the earth with them. This is what's ultimately important. And finally, I just want to encourage us, as somebody encouraged me when I was an upperclassman here at BJU a few years ago, to do theology in the first person. Do your theology. Study your Bible in the first person. Like it's you and God.

It is said of Edwards, all his preaching and writing aimed at the heart and that's because it was his heart that his study affected first. May God demonstrate his mercy and grace through your diligent preparation to his glory. Pray with me. Heavenly Father we thank you that you are more gracious than we could ever imagine.

Please strengthen us for your name's sake. You've been listening to a sermon by Dr. Eric Newton, one of the seminary professors at Bob Jones University. I'm Steve Pettit, president of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Thank you for listening to The Daily Platform. If you're looking for a regionally accredited Christian liberal arts university, I invite you to visit our campus and see how God is working in the lives of our students.

For more information about Bob Jones University, visit www.bju.edu or call 800-252-6363. You know, these daily programs are made possible by the many friends of Bob Jones University and this radio ministry. If you appreciate these programs and benefit from the faithful preaching and teaching of God's Word, would you consider sending us a special financial gift today? You can easily do that through the website, thedailyplatform.com, and then click on the give button on the home page. We hope you'll join us again tomorrow at this same time as we study God's Word together on The Daily Platform.